BaylyBlog: Out of our minds, too...

Midwives, denominations, abortions, and my present political philosophy...

I don't write much about Indiana politics and government but it's caused me no small sadness to contemplate the term-limit-departure of our fiscally excellent governor a little over a year from now. Gov. Mitch Daniels will have completed his second term and will have to leave office.

If I am comforted in our loss of Mitch's magnificent fiscal leadership, my comfort comes from this: that his likely successor is a man, Representaive Mike Pence, who promises to govern with the same fiscal commitments while adding a theological framework to those commitments that promises to extend far beyond fiscal discipline, on to principles concerning many other areas of governance including the battlefields on which the destroyers of our nation and its states are focussing their revolution: sexuality, the Image of God in man, the origin and nature of sexuality and marriage decreed by our Creator in His Order of Creation, and so forth.

As you read through Daniels' penultimate State of the State Address delivered yesterday evening, you will gain a hint of why I respect him. He has been unflinching in disciplining the educationists of our state by a host of private initiatives that have finally brought competition into public education. True, he brags about over half of our state budget going to edcuation, and he seems to see higher education as an unqualified good. I disagree with both things as I disagreed with President Bush on similar matters. Mitch Daniels is not a wild-eyed enthusiast. He's a realist who really changed our state. Definitively. And reading, you'll see what difference it makes to each citizen of the state.

But there's something else I want to say, here.

Some thirty years ago, I was at the Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly to oppose their denominational abortion policy. My dear Mary Lee was pregnant and, since we were in the habit of having home births, I'd called the midwest representative of the PC(USA)'s self-funded independent medical insurance plan to ask if they'd cover the cost of our midwife? It was awkward. He hemmed and hawed and said he didn't know and would have to get back to me on it...

Mt. Rainier...

Mary Lee and I flew into Seattle, yesterday, and on our way down to Vancouver, WA, we stopped at Mt. Rainier National Park. We drove up to Paradise which is above the tree line, then hiked up a couple trails, starting with the Alta Vista Trail where this pic was taken.

It was a beautiful Fall day with bright sunshine. We didn't see or hear any elk herds. Glacier National Park was much better for that. But what majesty, telling atheists and Christians alike of God's great glory!

When we got to Paradise two fox--one red and one black--were hanging with one huge raven. They were all begging.

The were twenty or so cross-country skiers coming off the mountain when we started up the trail. The sun set while we were up on the mountain. When we got back to the car almost eveyone was gone. (TB)

The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof...

 For of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace. - John 1:16

The garden's winding down. Just a few butternut squash still on the vine. String beans waning and cantelope and watermelon and summer squash gone. Cucumbers still ticking, but only slowly. Lots of every kind of pepper still coming--especially jalapeno and habanero (see pic on next page) and poblano (there behind the basil). The basil bushes are huge and we've finally let them flower. Bumblebees are all over them today. Our tomato plants go on bearing fruit, denuded down the bottom third of the stalk but sputtering out enough for joy at every lunch and dinner...

The blessing of Roger Nicole and his lectures on the authority of Scripture...

This past year, my dear friend and father-in-the-faith Dr. Roger Nicole went to be with the Lord. Other than family members, there are only a couple birthdays recorded each year on my calendar, but one of them has been Dr. Nicole's. His teaching at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary was in a category far beyond any professor I've sat under before or since (and I've had some superb profs).

I'll never forget Dr. Nicole's lectures in Systematics I on the doctrine of Scripture. One day he began by asking our class a series of questions probing our knowledge of the book of Psalms...

Things to appreciate about Campus Crusade for Christ/Cru...

What's Campus Crusade for Christ International/Cru done right? Here's a short list I hope others will add to...

Thank you, WORLD...

WORLD just went to print with a cover story mentioning our son and his wife, Joseph and Heidi Bayly, and their adopted son, Tate. (The online version of the article includes the video below.) The piece is about African adoption. Mary Lee and I have two grandsons who came to these United States from Africa and we hope to have another, soon. Doug and Heather Ummel's son, Josiah, as well as Joseph and Heidi's son, Joseph Tate Bayly VII, are both from Ethiopia and Joseph and Heidi are working towards adopting another child from Ethiopia as soon as the Ethiopian goverment does its paperwork.

It would be churlish of me to keep my recent post critical of WORLD up on Baylyblog, so I've removed it. I thank WORLD for its advocacy work on behalf of orphans in their distress. This is true religion.

Bob Kaplowitz...

Our dear brother, Bob Kaplowitz, had a bad spell early this evening, but now seems to have stabilized again. If you're wondering who Bob is, here's a post from 2008 that should make it clear to you that the entire congregation of ClearNote Church, Bloomington, is praying for Bob's recovery. The work he does among us is eternally important. Please pray for him, would you? And for what it's worth, the man draped over Bob's shoulders is our son-in-law, Lucas Weeks (Hannah's husband).

(TB)

"He started disciplining me like I was one of his sons..."

(Tim, w/thanks to Taylor) Read this wonderful story and ask yourself where the church turns boys--undisciplined angry ones, at that--into men? Youth groups? Home school co-ops? Christian school science labs? Crew? Membership classes? Men's retreats?

You say your church is not a parochial school filled with inner city kids and your own fathers are the ones training their own sons. I say, "Yeah, right."

Face it. Each of our churches has a bunch of young men every bit as much in need of the discipline of playing on Bob Hurley's basketball team as the kids at St. Anthony High in Jersey City. In the ministry today, we're surrounded by man-boys whose fathers have turned their backs on them. These young men crave discipline--which is to say they crave fatherly love...

What do I have that I didn't receive...

(Tim, w/thanks to Michael for finding the text) Yesterday, our sermon text was 1Corinthians 4:7-16. Here the Apostle Paul rebukes the Corinthian super-apostles for bragging about their gifts and using them to diss Paul: "For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?"

During the sermon, I mentioned this closing section of Edwards'' sermon, "Christian Charity: The Duty of Charity to the Poor Explained and Enforced," in which Edwards answers common objections to sharing our gifts with others. Note particularly Objection IX and Edwards' answer. Since first reading it thirty or so years ago, I've never forgotten it.

Incidentally, note Edwards doesn't answer Objection I from an unregenerate man by exhorting that man simply to meditate on, and trust God's grace. Rather, he exhorts him to keep God's Law, trusting that Law to serve the man as his schoolmaster to Christ. This is the opposite of our pastoral method and preaching today in Reformed churches (at least)...

Redemptive-Historical rap...

(Tim) At our recent Christmas Sing-A-Long, Church of the Good Shepherd's Mike Lockett rapped a Redemptive-Historical sermon he'd written that had me meditating on the basic doctrinal truths of God's Word. Ask some of your own young men to write a rap that preaches the Fall, the Incarnation, and the Atonement, then send a recording to us for posting here on Baylyblog. Thanks, Mike and Taylor, for busting me out of my ghetto.

The Redemptive History

 

The full Sing-A-Long can be enjoyed online here.

Death and life are in His mighty hands...

(Tim) The past two weeks the Bloomington Baylys have had sorrow and joy. Sorrow in the death of my dear cousin, John DeWalt, who succumbed to a long illness connected with diabetes. He died two weeks ago this coming Monday and some of us were able to travel to Pittsburgh for the funeral. There we grieved, and yet celebrated his homegoing with his mother, Inis (Mrs. Curtis) DeWalt, his sister Beth DeWalt, and his brother Paul DeWalt (along with Paul's wife, Patti, and their three children--Zachary, Sarah, and Jacob).

A week ago today, we had the joy of joining brother David's family in the celebration of the marriage of David's eldest son, Nathan, and his lovely bride, Aleaha (pron. a leah). It was a joyful day.

Then the past three days we've had the joy of gathering here in Bloomington for our family Thanksgiving celebration and being joined by my mother-in-law, Margaret (Mrs. Ken) Taylor. That's the pic you see above. For the record, we now have ten grandchildren. (I apologize to my dear wife, Mary Lee, for the mysterious white-out on her forehead, but otherwise it's the best pic.)

Names? Well, let's do it by families...

Giving thanks for true love...

(Tim) In the preface to his book, Alias Shakespeare, the late Joe Sobran wrote: "I would much rather be in the tradition of great American cranks like Thoreau, Ambrose Bierce, Lysander Spooner, and H. L. Mencken, than belong to the mass of scholars who, ever mindful of tenure, promotion, grants, and that last infirmity of ignoble minds, respectability, never deviate from scholarly consensus."

Everyone wants to have led a scientific revolution, but where's the man willing to lead one?

This Thanksgiving, I thank God for the nobility and fear of God that led Joe Sobran and Joe Bayly to deviate from the consensus and to oppose the regnant racism and sexism that deny the moral agency of blacks, women, and Jews...

Six days old...

(Tim) I don't know where this came from, but it's beautiful. And instructive.

When Christians (like one of my former elders who's a pharmacist) say they have no objection to abortion in the first few days or weeks of life; that there's no life or image of God in the first few days or weeks of the life of man, and thus they're willing to fulfill prescriptions for chemical abortifacients that kill the baby in the first few days or weeks of life; look very closely at this picture. This is the man they approve of murdering, or themselves murder.

Yes, 'murder' is the proper word. Anything less would further obscure the wickedness of our bloodthirsty nation.

Two days ago, Mary Lee was at the birth of another baby of our church who is the product of our congregation's faithful witness outside Planned Parenthood's abortuary here in Bloomington...

Good Uns...

(Tim) Last night on our way out to Vienna, Virginia for Joe Sobran's wake, Brian and I (Charlie Dugdale is also with us) traded Sobran quotes for a while, writing down our favorites.

• A college education teaches one the correct views on racial minorities and provides the means to live as far away from them as possible.
• The U.S. Constitution poses no serious threat to our form of government.
• Politician's lexicon: Greed is wanting to keep as much of your wealth as possible. Need is wanting someone else's wealth. Compassion is the means by which the transfer is arranged.
• Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, I'm a Republican.
• Quoting Chesterton: The modern and morbid habit of sacrificing the normal on the altar of the abnormal.
• The U.S. Constitution bears the same tenuous relationship to our government as the Book of Revelation does to the Unitarian Universalist Church.
• Quoting Charles Peguy: No one will ever know how many acts of cowardice have been committed out of the fear of seeming insufficiently progressive.

The Institute of Awesome...

(Tim) I've been privileged to attend several of the Ministers Conferences put on by Christ Church of Moscow, Idaho, and I commend them to you. So take a minute right now to go over to their web site and check out this year's conference. Speakers will include Doug Wilson, Ben Merkle, Toby Sumpter, and Nate Wilson--all speaking on the theme "The Institute of Awesome: Keeping Calvinism Sassy for the Next Fifteen Minutes."

And if you go, do as we've done and take an extra day to go up and hike in Glacier National Park, wondering at the beauty our Creator throws willy-nilly everywhere: the fall colors, the elk herds, and their bugling bulls.

Let her works praise her in the gates...

(Tim) For some forty years, now--during all the years I've loved her daughter, Mary Lee--Mom Taylor has been one of my heroines. A couple weeks ago, Mary Lee and I travelled back to Wheaton to attend a banquet held in Mom's honor by the Crowell Trust upon the occassion of the Trust awarding Mom their Susan Coleman Crowell Award.

Mary Lee is number nine of ten and her next older sibling, Mrs. Bob (Gretchen) Worcester, gave a short sketch of Mom's life and character. She did such a good job, I asked if she would send a copy of what she'd said.

Here then is Gretchen's bio of Mom. All of us in the Taylor clan rise up and call Mom blessed. May our Heavenly Father continue to provide His covenant children with such godly mothers as He provided us in Margaret West Taylor. (And for the record, our next to youngest, Hannah Weeks, just gave birth to Mom's forty-seventh great grandchild, and Lord willing, any day now our eldest, Heather Ummel, will give birth to Mom's forty-eighth (Mary Lee's and my tenth grandchild).

* * *

Tribute to Mom – Susan Coleman Crowell Award

I’ve been asked to share about our mom tonight from a family perspective – how she has been influential as a wife and mother.

The first thing to understand about Margaret Taylor as a wife and mother is that she was married to the same man for 65 years, and that she raised 10 children! Those are both amazing numbers! But probably even more amazing than the number of children was our spacing.

He who has eyes to see...

Knowing many readers think I've lost my mind posting this video, please read my apology, such as it is, in the next to last comment, below. And those who read it earlier, I've added some text just now, late Tuesday afternoon.

(Tim) The wonder of this world is that in His wrath against sin God doesn't consume every last one of us. Not your neighbor, but you. Not the Roman Catholic priest or Mormon elder, but me. By all rights, each and every day should end with a universal flood that consumes us all.

But God Who is rich in mercy has promised He will never do it again and the rainbow is His covenant sign that this promise of mercy will stand until the end of time.

That is what this means. And our friend is right to be overwhelmed and cry. Our Heavenly Father made a sign of terrible beauty and splendor to point to a covenant of unbelievable mercy and love.

It shall come about, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow will be seen in the cloud, and I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to destroy all flesh. When the bow is in the cloud, then I will look upon it, to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.(Genesis 9:14-16)

Disciplining racism: It all came down to just a couple votes...

(In September of 2008, preaching in the midst of a raging controversy over racism that was dividing his own congregation) Pastor Bulkeley condemned the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations, saying its leader taught that Nazism was the "racial order" of God and that Jews should be eliminated. "This teaching was evil," Bulkeley told his congregation. "It is heretical. It is from the pit of hell and it's a direct offense against the gospel. There should be no mistake about that. It is completely contrary to everything the Bible teaches."

(Tim, w/thanks to Joel B.) Here's an article and sidebar from the Summer 2010 issue of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report telling the story of good church discipline carried out in Friendship Presbyterian Church outside Asheville, North Carolina. The discipline ended up also being adjudicated by the congregation's appellate court, Western Carolina Presbytery (PCA). (And if you don't understand why I'd refer to a PCA presbytery as an appellate court, read Brother David's superb commentary on the state of the PCA post-General Assembly union, here.)

Racism was the sin, and thus the Southern Poverty Law Center this one time stood on the side of the angels. Both the article and the sidebar attempt to provide some of the historic context for the battle against racism throughout the history of the PCA--very much a southern denomination with its roots deeply embedded in "The Recent Unpleasantness."

These articles have both the weaknesses and strengths of their origin outside the PCA. I hope you'll take the time to read them.

First, though, one prefatory remark. Dealing with abortion or racism or feminism is a bloody work...

ClearNote Conference 2010...

(Tim) This past weekend, many brothers and sisters and their children joined us for the ClearNote Fellowship Conference. The theme of our worship and preaching was, In the Godly, Fear and Love Embrace. The fellowship, preaching, and worship strengthened us all, greatly.

Then, following morning Lord's Day worship and a feast, we held the ordination service for my son, Joseph Bayly, to the work of planting ClearNote Church, Indianapolis. My brother, David, preached the sermon. Then we laid hands on Joseph and set him apart to the work of an Evangelist.

Soon, links to the sermons will be available and those of you who weren't able to join us will be able to listen to them. If you're wise, you won't miss them.

And speaking of being wise, I exhort you to...

Some explanation of the dearth of posts, recently...

(Tim) So where have I been? Busy.

We have been showing and trying to sell our house. May God be pleased to allow it to sell soon.

Then this past week, our youngest son, Taylor, Mary Lee, and I moved into a new house. About three years ago, it became clear to us we no longer wanted to live on Bloomington's east side (Target, Macy's, Borders, professors, and wealth), so we began looking for a home to buy out here on the west side (Lowes, Aldi, Sam's Club, and Walmart). Key considerations were our new church building being just outside city limits and all but one of our grandchildren living within a mile or two of our new home out here on the west side.

The problem was there were very few homes on this side of town built to accommodate large family and church meal fellowship by a large kitchen and dining/living room. So, you guessed it: we built our new home. It's not our dream house, but living in it is a dream and we're exhausted and happy for this gift given us by God through Mike Boles and his excellent suppliers and craftsmen. Mike and his wife, Lisa, gave us the general contracting work as a kindness to one of their pastors, and this is one of the most loving gifts we've ever received...

Legacy publishers on the ropes...

(Tim) The latest New Yorker has an article by Ken Auletta chronicling the death throes of bookstores and traditional book publishers. People are still buying books, but there's a hostile takeover of these legacy hard copy businesses being waged by authors and their strong allies: particularly the explosion of e-books and the pricing structure and self-publishing services of a number of companies; most especially, Amazon. 

It's been a long time coming and nothing but good that authors are regaining some authority over the marketing and distribution of their work.

Take, for instance, self-publishing. In the old days, traditional book publishers cultivated the notion that anything worth publishing would be recognized and put under contract by a reputable publisher. If you weren't able to interest the big name publishers and went the vanity press route, it was because you were vain and wouldn't listen to the simple truth acquisitions editors kindly sent you by letter--that your book had no market. So hardheaded authors who wouldn't take "no" for an answer went off to a vanity press and paid, rather than being paid, for their book to be published. They spent money out of their own pockets to purchase a few hundred copies they could pawn off on business associates or family members.

But no serious man with serious credentials and serious things to say would be caught dead going that route. That's what was meant when you heard the suits say "he went with a vanity press."

Of course those who live in the publishing world know how fallible acquisitions editors and publishers are. John Grisham had his first mystery turned down by twelve publishers and sixteen agents before he found someone willing to take him into print...

A Psalm for Easter...

Let's celebrate Easter
with the rite
of laughter.
Christ died and rose
and lives.
Laugh like a woman
who holds her first baby.
Our enemy death
will soon be destroyed.
Laugh like a man
who finds he doesn't have cancer
or does but now there's a cure.
Christ opened wide the door of heaven.
Laugh like children
at Disneyland's gates.
This world is owned by God
and He'll return to rule.
Laugh like a man
who walks away uninjured
from a wreck
in which his car was totaled.
Laugh
as if all the people in the whole world
were invited to a picnic
and then invite them.

-Joe Bayly

Joe Sobran: preaching to the conscience and the Roman Catholic error of transubstantiation...

(Tim) Ten years ago, I read this column by Joe Sobran. Joe's declaration of faith gave me joy, but what struck me, particularly, was this statement:

Great as Shakespeare is, I never lose sleep over anything he said. He leaves my conscience alone.

Still today, I find myself wondering whether what's lacking in Shakespeare is not also lacking in my own preaching? Do God's sheep leave my proclamation of the Word of God each Lord's Day morning with easy consciences? Is their sleep always peaceful? If so, what an unfaithful minister of the Gospel I am.

Then we hit Sobran's promotion of the Roman Catholic error of transubstantiation. If you think it scandalous that I'd give any space to Sobran's defense of transubstantiation, never fear. Think about this.

Jesus didn't say, "this wine which is poured out for you," "this wine is the new covenant in my blood," or "for as often as you eat this bread and drink this wine...."

Rather, He said:

“This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood" (Luke 22:20b). And the Apostle Paul said, "For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. But a man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup. (1 Corinthians 11:25-28).

Reformed Protestants have no need to fear the Roman Catholic dogma of transubstantiation. If their claim to hold to the literal meaning of these texts were true, it wouldn't be the wine, but the cup that becomes our Lord's blood. Have you ever tried to drink a cup?

Corrie ten Boom, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oskar Schindler, and Leah Winandy...

(Tim, w/thanks to Alan) Now that it's safe, movies are made and books written about the men and women who feared God and took action to save the lives of Jews during the Third Reich. Corrie ten Boom and Dietrich Bonhoeffer are the best-known in evangelical circles. Oskar Schindler was the inspiration behind Steven Spielberg's Academy Awards Best Picture, Schindler's List. Too, there's the relentless (and unjustified) attack on Pope Pius XII for his purported failure to defend the Jews.

But back when Hitler was still in power and the Jews were still being slaughtered, who then was making movies about Corrie ten Boom, Oskar Schindler, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer?

No one. Our Lord made it clear prophets don't get garlands until they're dead and buried.

And while, elsewhere on this blog, the debate rages over whether any pastoral prayer should include a petition that God our Father would cause our civil magistrates to repent of their hatred of justice and mercy and bring an end to the slaughter of untold millions of unborn babies they have presided over, there are a few heroes at work in our cities today...

Tim Tebow and Jim Dobson: "He was my friend, faithful and just to me"...

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man….
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.

(Tim, w/thanks to many) Like Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind, Jim Dobson's breakout book, Dare to Discipline, was rejected by many publishers before one gave it a try--in Dobson's case, my father-in-law's Tyndale House Publishers. Later, Dad Taylor gave money to Jim to do a radio show, and the rest is history.

I am not ashamed of Dr. James Dobson. Rather, I've long expressed my deep gratitude for Jim's work on the air and in print. Few men have contributed so much Biblical instruction to my flocks. When the history of the late twentieth century is written, it will become clear Jim was one of the most courageous warriors for truth and mercy and justice in these United States.

You may have noticed on this blog that I've never mentioned the name of that publication in Wheaton calling itself Christianity Today. One reason is their sotto voce attacks on Jim Dobson. Among Wheaton's detelligentsia, it's hip to smirk when Dobson's name comes up, and CT has taken its cue and place among the pea-shooters.

This has been very discouraging for Jim; it's hurt him, his wife Shirley, and their children.

I can hear the exclamations: "Hello! How does Tim Keller feel about your criticism, dude? Something about the splinter and the log!"

Fair enough...

Boston Herald: "A revolution begins..."

(Tim) Just posted, this editorial from the Boston Herald:

It was - for the second time in Massachusetts history - the shot heard round the world, or at the very least from coast to coast and surely in the halls of Congress.

Scott Brown won this one fair and square with his down-to-earth charm, his hard work and his forthright position on issues - and with the help of that much-disparaged by the opposition pick-up truck.

But it is also true that Brown was the right candidate at the right time with the right message. And it’s that message that the White House and congressional Democrats can no longer ignore. After all, if the people of Massachusetts can send a Republican to the U.S. Senate to fill the seat Ted Kennedy had a lock on for 47 years, then the revolution has indeed begun.

Not trusting in horses and chariots (and certainly not the Republican Party), as a former resident of the Bay State who worked for a couple years for the only other man who came close to taking this seat from Ted Kennedy (Si Spaulding), I view tonight's defeat of the Kennedy legacy as God's kindness to us.

Reading a review of Chadwick's just-released bio of Augustine earlier this evening...

"I yuv you, dwamma"...

(Tim) Responding to the post The invisible woman and its comments, one Titus 2 (older) woman wrote:

I recently heard from an old classmate, sombody who knew me as a teen and with whom I have had no contact for thirty five years. Having asked her to tell me about herself and her life, I received a letter telling of her early marriage that lasted seven years and ended in divorce. The marriage produced one child and so years of single parenting were combined with continuing education in pursuit of the sheepskin attesting to her qualification for the career of her choice. That career, however, turned out to be less than a "dream come true," and she shared that, having recently remarried a successful businessman who would appear to have significant material wealth, she joyfully abandoned her chosen career to work full time in her husband's office.

Her daughter is grown, upwardly mobile, and living in New York City. Her husband's children are adults. So, when her obligations in his office are fulfilled, her life revolves around travel, charity work, exercise, and entertaining. She plays the accordion, she participated in a beauty pageant last year and intends to do so again this year. (This at the age of 56!) They do triathlons together, snowmobile, and enjoy the lakes in the summer...

Lo! He abhors not the virgin's womb...

(Tim) Christmas has always been babies. It started with two babies in their mother's wombs, One with an eternal weight of glory and the other, recognizing that Glory, preparing His way by proclaiming His presence to the only one listening--His mother, Elizabeth.

Think of it! John the Baptist beginning to do the work of His calling when he was still in his mother's womb. What a man! What a child! A faithful prophet, he couldn't open his mouth and speak, so in his mother's womb he rolled and jumped and kicked and turned somersaults! His mother got the message...

Tim Keller, my hero...

(Tim) Speaking of honor to whom honor is due, I was very pleased yesterday with Tim Keller's expressed distaste for video worship. In the piece that ran on the front page of USA Today yesterday (I guess that's how you say it?) concerning multi-site megachurches, he was profiled and several times given the opportunity to sign on to the world of video-worship-sermons inhabited by many, but most sadly our dear brothers John Piper and Mark Driscoll.

He demurred, and because of his demurral I'm proud to be PCA. Seriously.

Thank you, Tim Keller.

Now, if someone will just write a jeremiad against the corruption of the church and worship and pastoral care these idolatrous video screens are solidifying among us, I can die in peace.

* * *

And while I'm commending Tim Keller, here's a helpful article he did a couple days ago on the role doctrinal criticism has in our sanctification. It's a good read, pastoral and quite true.

Comparing presidential Thanksgiving proclamations: from thanking God to thanking ourselves...

(Tim, w/thanks to Eric) Comparing today's Thanksgiving Proclamation by President Obama with last year's by President Bush presents us a study in contrasts. Specifically, one heart that turns in gratitude to God and one that doesn't...

The martyrdom of intellectuals...

(Tim, w/thanks to Kamilla) For Baylyblog readers, this from Touchstone's Tony Esolen is well worth the five minutes it will take. Praise God for men and women who love God's Word and Truth, leading us back to the innocence and joy of the Garden!

Taylor Isaiah Bayly I...

(Tim) Taylor played varsity soccer this past year and this pic ran in the Bloomington paper. Am I proud of my son? Yes, I am. More for his heart than soccer, though. He submits to authority! Can you imagine that? No matter how normal it is to you, it's always amazing to me. After all, I was his age a few days ago, and submission wasn't ground zero in my character traits.

If your daughters are home schooled and you think he's handsome, just send me an e-mail with proposed dowry. We're building a house.

JK.

Praise God for the love and compassion of Bible-believing Christians...

(Tim) This is written by a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy. Thinking readers might have some responses, I post it here. I've received it second or third hand, so I don't know the writer or context.

While recognizing that some people have a calling from God to speak out specifically on these sins, I find that the focus among many Evangelicals on the abortion and same-sex marriage issues to the exclusion of all others reflects the extreme individualism of Protestant theology and ethics, both "conservative" and "liberal". Evangelicals care rightly about the killing that goes on within a woman's womb, and about the improper and irreverent use of our God-given sexual organs in our own bodies or in the bodies of others. But there is not always a corresponding concern about the killing and grave threats to human life that are present outside of the womb, and about the improper and irreverent use of the natural world and material possessions given to us by God.

I don't think it's an accident that the same individualistic faith traditions that emphasize and sanctify "my personal choice" (to accept Jesus as "personal Savior" in the case of conservative Protestants, to have an abortion as a "personal matter" in the case of the liberals) but downplay the physical unity and continuity of the Body of Christ across space and time would also be quite uncertain regarding the social obligations that Christians have to their political and military enemies, to the poor and sick among us, and to the rest of God's creation. A faith tradition that fails to connect our moral obligations inside our bodies with our moral obligations outside of our bodies is deficient in both its anthropology and its ecology.

To get things started, it seems to me evangelicals are now close to the heart of the movement for the social justice of cutting carbon emissions, calling for the government to increase funds for AIDS research, and shaming people who litter. Rick Warren, anyone? Brian McLaren? Rob Bell up there in Grand Rapids? Inter-Varsity? Zondervan? Navigators? Willow Creek? Tim Keller and his flock?

And of course, every last prof at Covenant and Taylor and Gordon and Westmont and Wheaton.

Maybe our critic is only speaking of historic evangelicalism--not the classic liberalism that's taken over these past few decades.

But then he has an entirely different problem...

The axeman cometh...

(Tim Bayly: This post is written by a craftsman of musical instruments in our church named Andrew Henry. I asked him to write about his beautiful musical instruments and to include some pics. He's kindly done so and you'll see why I'm tickled pink to own his first guitar. The action is fantastic, the wood is drop-dead gorgeous, and I'm bragging so I'll stop. Read on and order a bass guitar for a loved one or yourself. You won't regret it!)

God has been very gracious in allowing me to make my living working with my hands. There have been woodworkers in my family for generations and, as a kid, I spent many hours with my dad in his wood shop. But it looked like I wouldn't be following in those footsteps until about two years ago when I was finishing up my Viola Performance degree at IU and considering what sorts of jobs to look for. I'd spent three years in the IU Violinmaking program, earned my Associate's Degree in Violinmaking and had fallen in love with woodworking again...

Marxists killed their hundred million, feminists their billion...

Lots of Berliners talked of Ronald Reagan’s speech, delivered in Berlin, almost two years earlier, when he demanded:”Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down this Wall!” Was President Reagan’s dramatic call about to happen? Some Berliners worried the soldiers would take charge. No one knew.

Ironically, the worst source of information was the media, perhaps because in 1987 so many had underestimated the importance of Reagan’s speech. The New York Times declared that Reagan had “lost the air of authority” and suggested that Reagan’s Berlin Wall speech was “surreal” and indicated that the “presidency had ceased to function.” The Washington Post, and U.S. News & World Report has also been highly critical.

But, in November 1989, Berliners remembered the power of a U.S. president calling for the hateful wall to be torn down. Each person to whom I spoke, seemed to know someone, a family member or friend, who had been trapped on the other side of the wall. Hope was alive, powerful and focused on tearing down the Wall. -"I Helped Tear Down the Wall"

(Tim) Grant Olson, the producer of the video at the bottom of this post, was an elder at our church some years back. Since then, he's gone on to serve in Campus Crusade's work in Eastern Europe. Although I'm in strong disagreement with Crusade's relegation of the Church to the sideline of evangelism and discipleship, since the fall of communism twenty years ago, it's been a great joy to see how Crusade has poured men into Eastern Europe where they've boldly proclaimed Jesus Christ.

There was some glamor in the early years, but that glamor has long since departed. The callouses Marxism left on men's hearts are real. Also, the systemic poverty and corruption that is Communism's legacy remains intractable in many of the Eastern European countries. The glory days of the first opening of Eastern Europe are long gone and what's left for those giving themselves to the people of countries such as Albania, Hungary, and Romania is very tough slogging.

So God bless Campus Crusade and her men and women who have loved Eastern Europeans with the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

All this on the occasion of our arrival, today, at the Twentieth Anniversary of the act of God pulling down the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989. Men of towering courage and strength like Lech Walesa, John Paul II, Ronald Reagan, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn were putty in God's hands to bring down the bloodiest ideology and greatest oppression man had known up until that time. (It's since been dwarfed by feminism's victims, one billion and counting.)

In my office is a picture Dad had been given by the artist who drew it. He had the drawing on the wall of his study and loved it...

Christ Church Ministerial Conference: Elijah's mantle...

(Tim) Stephen and Sebra Baker and Mary Lee and I had an excellent time at the Christ Church Ministerial Conference last Thursday and Friday. The conference's subject was "Sexual Orthodoxy" and the MP3s should soon be available from Canon Press.

Make sure you listen to Doug on "The Politics of Fruitfulness" and his son-in-law, Ben Merkle, on "Sentimentalism and the Feminine Ethos." Doug does a good survey of the growing, worldwide birth dearth, following up with the Scriptural doctrine that children are a blessing from the Lord. This cultural critique is needed across the Reformed church, today, where money and degrees are chosen over children. Ben's talk is a helpful reminder of the necessity of letting boys be boys so they may grow up to be leaders (with a particular emphasis on the church). I found all the talks helpful, but thought these two were standouts.

Everything in Moscow isn't the life of the mind, though, and our meals with Doug and Nancy, their children and grandchildren, were a great joy as we see God providing for the leadership of the Church through coming generations. Like the rest of Doug and Nancy's progeny, keep your eyes on Ben. He's a young man married to a strong and prudent wife, Bekah; their children are well-disciplined and happy; and it's obvious God has given him great wisdom. At this point, Ben's plans are to serve in the Academy (meaning New St. Andrews). Spending time with Ben and Bekah, though, I found myself jealous for their gifts to be used in the pastorate.

Then again, what do I know, anyhow?

Summing up, every time we have an opportunity to spend time in Moscow, with Doug and Nancy, their children and grandchildren, and the other members of the CREC/Christ Church/Canon Press/New St. Andrews team, we're reminded our Savior's rule is "by their fruit ye shall know them." Godly homes and families? Living faith? Biblical discernment? Humility? The complete absence of materialism or chest-thumping?

Honestly...

Thankful for our new location and church-house...

(Tim) We've been in our new church-house for over a year, now, and I'm grateful to the Lord for several things about our move to this new location and this home He has provided our congregation.

First, I'm grateful He kept us from building on the site where we'd planned and broken ground for a costly architectural beauty. It was to be situated on Bloomington's southeast side where we'd purchased one of the most scenic pieces of real estate within city limits. We'd received the city's approval and seen tossed out of court a lawsuit brought by the wealthy neighbors whose homes were perched on two ridges adjoining our thirty acres of woods, a creek, and a beautiful meadow. Every obstacle seemed to have been cleared.

The work of the engineering and architectural firms was largely complete and we'd held our groundbreaking ceremony. Then, the Lord intervened, and within a short time we'd sold the property and purchased new acreage out on the city's west side. Why?

"In pain you will bring forth children..."

To the woman He said, “I will greatly multiply Your pain in childbirth, In pain you will bring forth children (Genesis 3:16a)

(Tim) One mother who recently gave birth to her first child wrote this meditation on the pain of childbirth, woman's curse from our Heavenly Father. Thank God for this mother and every other woman who is not ashamed of her sex, but gives herself to it as an act of faith and courage. How I love and praise God for these women that surround us as we do the work of husbandry in the home, church, and public square! "The woman is the glory of man."

* * *

Thank you ______ for this testimony of motherhood... I had similar thoughts of the "pain in childbirth" part of the curse until this past year.

Even after I realized that the whole pregnancy was included in "childbirth," I think I still thought that once I got through labor and delivery, I would be done with the pain of childbearing. Almost every day, I realize how wrong that is, but I started to learn that lesson in my first days after delivery...

An opportunity for our good readers...

(Tim) Since we're talking about this blog...

Back when I entered the ministry, during the last week of December three months after I arrived, I was heartsick to see the church receiving envelopes from people I'd never heard of containing checks with the notation "Membership Dues."

Of course, they were checks for a niggling amount, but that didn't bother me. Rather, what got me was that they were allowed to be members if they gave ten or twenty-five dollars a year, but never worshiped or served the Lord God Almighty. You can guess changing this became my first commitment, and that's when all the glorious trouble and blessings began...

People who come here, and learn, give us the gift we want most: students of the Word who actually show up when we guard the good deposit, who hunger after the pure milk of the Scriptures. Admittedly, that's not how many think of it, I'm sure. As one of our regular readers commented, yesterday:

The main reason I read this blog ...is to try to understand the rationale for views that seem so very alien to me.

"Very alien," indeed. Where have all the flowers gone, long time a'passing...

What I forgot to say...

(Tim) Yesterday, commenting on the mile marker this blog reached in readership, I neglected to say something very important--to pay a large debt David and I owe.

Here on this blog, David and I frequently have expressed our appreciation for those of you who make this blog the repository of your Godly wisdom. Your comments are the reason for the length of time people spend here and the two and a half page views per visit. If I were to start naming names, there would be no end to it, but I can't fail to thank three whose labors are simply outstanding and give us great joy.

Ladies first...

Thank you...

The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. (2 Timothy 2:2)

(Tim) I've never written anything about readership, but Sunday we hit a milestone I'd like to note: Baylyblog has passed one million visits (2.5 million page views) and our average visitor spends 4 minutes, 45 seconds with us. RSS feeds stand around 250.

Thank you, dear readers...

An interview with Elisabeth Elliot...

(Tim) During four years in the late nineties and early two-thousands while pastoring Church of the Good Shepherd, I also led the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood as its Executive Director. My brother, David, joined me in that work and was a great help, designing our first web site and providing invaluable counsel while also serving in the pastorate.

Part of my work was editing CBMW's journal. Periodically, we ran interviews--one being with my hero, Elisabeth Elliot. Naturally, I did the interview myself.

Growing up, the Bayly family had a long personal association with the Howards of Philadelphia--particularly Dave Howard and his sister, Elisabeth Elliot. A couple months ago, Elisabeth's husband, Lars, wrote me telling of a recent trip he and Elisabeth had taken to visit family down in South America. For those of you who know and love them, Lars and Elisabeth are doing well.

So then, here's the interview from CBMW's Journal, Volume 5, No. 1.

* * *

PLAIN AND SIMPLE: AN INTERVIEW WITH ELISABETH ELLIOT

JBMW: We are delighted to be able to speak with you. Why do you think you've been a lightning rod in the evangelical world on this particular issue?

EE: I didn't know I was! I have just proceeded the way I've tried all my life to proceed-by studying what the Bible says and living by it. If I'm asked to talk about it, of course I have a responsibility to talk about it. It is from this that I have learned that I'm not wanted in many circles...

Take a river trip with Al Parker and Canoe Creations...

 (Tim) Dear friends of ours, Al and Amy Parker, run a business called Canoe Creations that takes families, school groups, youth groups, and others into the wilds for a trip down creeks, streams, or rivers. You can go to them or they can travel to you and use a stream or river in your area. If you've never paddled a river with the Parkers, you haven't lived.

For many years, Al worked for Indiana's Department of Natural Resources reestablishing raptors in a number of areas--most particularly Bald Eagles in the Wabash River Valley. (He also put peregrine falcons i the tops of Chicago skyscrapers in an effort to control the pigeons.) Due partly to Al's efforts, Bald Eagles have made a comeback in this area and are now predators once again, as God made them to be. You know, "nature red in tooth and claw" and all that.

A couple months ago, Lawrence Howell and I were talking on his back deck when we saw a Bald Eagle land in one of the trees by his small pond he stocks with catfish. A week or two later, the catfish were gone, thank you very much. But back to Al and his river trips...

Trust me, you want to subscribe...

(Tim) This post is to recommend that you become a charter subscriber to a new journal from the Howard Center for Family, Religion, and Society titled, The Family in America.

Why?

Over twenty years ago, now, I subscribed to a small newsletter called Religion and Society Report edited by the late Richard John Neuhaus. It was helpful to me as a young pastor, thinking through how to lead and teach my flocks to honor God in our evil day. At the time the publication was humble and helpful.

Not too long after subscribing, there was notice of a breach between the editor and publisher, along with embarrassing notes of this and that person being thrown out of the publication’s offices in New York City. Who knows what happened. Happily, though, it was an ill wind that did blow somebody some good.

Neuhaus announced he was starting a journal and offered subscriptions. I subscribed and still do (having great hope for the future under Joseph Bottum's editorship, by the way, now that Mr. Neuhaus has died). Regularly, I tell men and women seeking the terminal (not malignant, mind you) degree that they must subscribe to First Things if they hope to be something beyond harmless as a dove or culpably naïve in the Academy.

My pride is less that I was there at the beginning than that I financially supported a truly worthy enterprise for many years. Here we had a magazine that actually deserved support (unlike Christianity Today which has been dying the slow death of morbid obesity for decades, now).

Like the rest of us, through the years Neuhaus made his mistakes...

My gratitude for John Calvin...

(Tim) Through the years of work in the pastorate, no one has fed and strengthened and rebuked and exhorted me more faithfully than John Calvin. I thank God for him on this his five hundredth birthday. If you read only one man, make it Geneva's leading pastor of the Reformation.

Serving Christ in Cedar Rapids, Iowa...

(Tim) Two weeks ago, our high school men and women went over to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to serve those trying to recover from the terrible flood the community suffered last year. Led by their youth workers, David Abu-Sara, Veronica Allen, Abram Hess, Emily Hess, and Ryan Schnitzer, they returned reporting that the governmental authorities were not particularly helpful to the residents, being better at red tape than getting things done.

The work done by the group was coordinated by church planters, Jeremy Knapp and Michael Langer, of One Ancient Hope (PCA). Our men and women were given a place to sleep in the basement of Hope Evangelical Church (PCA).

The Iowa Independent ran an article on the post-flood political problems and our group made the blurb under one of the pictures...

John Piper explaining his invitation to Doug Wilson...

(Tim) When John invited Doug Wilson to speak at one of his big conferences, I sent him an e-mail commending him for his courage. Like those who paid dearly for inviting Dad to speak after he publicly rebuked Bill Gothard in the pages of Eternity, John will pay for escorting Doug into the Reformed big top.

But like Doug, John has some courage and those who specialize in anti-Wilson bile should take note that, among men who are reformed pastors of national reputation, John stands with Doug. Why?

John released this video explaining his invitation. Forget the first three minutes or so. Just listen to the last few seconds and you'll get the straight dope. (And by the way, I do wish men would release a transcript of such video talks so we weren't forced to spend the time watching video to get their message.)

Please read David's sermon; also, several helpful things from the Archibolds...

(Tim) First, if you haven't read the sermon David preached yesterday posted just below (A Sermon for the President--and for the People of God), I commend it to you. We need sermons like this to be preached across our country until those called by God as civil magistrates lead us to return to the fear of God and mercy to the poor, helpless, sojourners in our midst, and unborn. Note particularly David's comment about our self-made bonds.

Second, we're still getting the occasional Christmas/Easter letter and I thought we'd all benefit from this statement from my dear Roman Catholic friends from Denver, John and Molly Archibold:

We have been extraordinarily blessed through joys and sorrows. (Molly)

Just right...

The Lord giveth: Anne-Claire and Elise Holmes...

(Tim) God is so kind to us! Shortly after Noon, today, with her husband by her side, Mrs. Chris (Michelle) Holmes gave birth to twin daughters, Anne-Claire Evangeline Holmes at 12:52 PM weighing 3 lbs. 11 oz., and Elise Lydia Michelle Holmes at 12:54 PM weighing 2 lbs. 10 oz. Join us in giving thanks for the Lord's mercy to the least of these.

The first pic is of Anne-Claire, the second of Elise. Both babies are fine. Right now, Chris is up in the neonatal unit seeing his daughters, and Michelle is praising God with Barbara (who attended the birth with Chris) and Mary Lee (who arrived soon after). Praise God with us for saving both girls' lives, and protecting their mother!

And as an explanation to those of you who have not followed this dangerous work Michelle has been doing, her twins were diagnosed eleven weeks ago today with Twin-toTwin Transfusion Syndrome, and for most of the weeks since then, mother Michelle has been in the hospital hooked up to fetal monitors asking the Lord to allow her daughters to survive until they were large enough to live outside the womb. So today, by God's grace, they were both born--tiny, but living and healthy, even. And yes, that is a syringe.

A reformed congregation that doesn't use grace to silence the fear of God...

(Tim) Conrad Mbewe serves as the pastor of Kabwata Baptist Church in Lusaka, Zambia--one of the more vital reformed witnesses the Lord has raised up in our time. The congregation is known for reaching into the dregs of society in a non-patronizing way, doing frontline evangelism, training pastors at a pastors college they sponsor, planting churches around the country, etc. As I said, the Lord's presence and blessing are obvious to those familiar with the congregation. This is a reformed congregation with a large heart, no censorious spirit, expansive in its witness and hopes, and living in the fear of God.

Maybe that's the thing that most strikes me about Pastor Mbewe and his people: they have not used reformed doctrine as a pathway to cheap grace that silences the fear of God. Everything is not "grace, grace, grace" to them. Their harp of ten thousand strings does not harp on that one string so long.

This is a test. Read through Kabwata's prayer letter noting the parts we must admit would never be written; or, if written, never quite make it past the editor's keyboard of our own churches' newsletters. To help with the task, I've put several in bold italics.

If the letter piques your interest, here's Pastor Mbewe's blog where you'll find a truly Biblical apostolic African voice.

* * *

KABWATA BAPTIST CHURCH PRAYER LETTER

“Pray without ceasing” (1 Thessalonians 5:17)

March 2009

Dear brothers and sisters,   

We open this prayer letter with the words of Scripture, “Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him” (Psalm 126:5-6). That is our testimony as a church as we review the last few months of the year 2008, including the first few months of this year.

MEMBERSHIP
The year 2008 was full of tears, as we lost precious church members who graduated from the church militant to the church triumphant. We also wept much over the excommunications that were necessary in order to avert the judgment of God upon the church...